What is Scott Brown doing? A. He's running for Senate in New Hampshire. B. He's genuinely undecided. C. He's probably not running, but is toying with the idea. D. He has no intention of running, but likes the publicity.

A: Aaron Blake

I tend to think it's B and maybe trending toward A. If he just wants attention, this is a weird way to do it. Why wouldn't he just toy with another campaign in Massachusetts?

I think he really liked being in the Senate and wants a way to be there for more than just one term. He was never going to be safe in Massachusetts. And why not roll the dice in New Hampshire and hope Obamacare is such an albatross that it brings people like Shaheen down?

New Hampshire is all politics. The people pay attention. Political culture is developed. How can Scott Brown plausibly walk into a state like that with ambitious politicians and an informed electorate and win?

A: Aaron Blake

Because he's a likeable moderate who actually has a claim to being from New Hampshire.

I'm as skeptical as the next guy when it comes to Brown running in NH two years after losing in MA. Itlooks crassly political and opportunist. But if anybody can pull it off, it's a likeble moderate from a neighboring state who can raise gobs of money.

I think he makes what would otherwise have been a third-tier race into a second-tier race for the GOP.

With Scott Brown, there is the question of being a carpetbagger -- a charge that seems to be the kiss of death except for people who run for the Senate in New York where we have had Clinton of Arkansas, Kennedy of Virginia, Buckley of Connecticut and, one of our first Senators, Rufus King signed the Constitution as a representative from Massachusetts.

A: Aaron Blake

Carpetbagging isn't totally unheard of outside the Empire State.

Elizabeth Dole had to move back to North Carolina to run for Senate.

And Jay Rockefeller launched his political career in West Virginia shortly after moving from New York in the 1960s.

If enrollment in the ACA starts climbing, do you expect Republicans to continue advocating repeal, which would entail potentially kicking millions of people off their health insurance? Or will they find some other means of criticizing the law?

A: Aaron Blake

It's a good question. I think Republicans will stick with this message no matter what, because their base demands it.

The question is at what point the scales tip against that strategy and Americans start to see it as frivolous and counter-productive. If the health-care law can right the ship and show some successes, then I think that's a debate we can have.

For now, even as polls show most Americans favor fixing or keeping the law as-is, I don't think supporting repeal is a liability.

Do political reporters realize that a lot can happen between now and Nov. 2014 (and even more between now and 2016)? Nobody has any idea, for example, how well Obamacare will work in ten months. Why keep writing piece after piece about it when so many issues are on the table now?

A: Aaron Blake

I think there's a difference between writing about how Obamacare is playing/working right now and predicting what it will be like in 2014.

Just because we write this stuff in the context of 2014 doesn't mean that we're predicting anything will happen in that election.

But -- and this is the key -- the way in which the law is viewed today and how the parties think it might affect the next election has a HUGE impact on how it is implemented and changed in 2013 and early 2014. To ignore that aspect and pretend electoral politics don't matter in this process is to do everyone a disservice.

You said: "If Republicans can't nominate anybody to Romney's right, they're in trouble. But I don't think that's the case. They just need someone who can sell conservatism better than Romney did." I agree that Romney wasn't a great messenger. But aren't they going to have to moderate on some issues, such as immigration, if they want to win a Presidential election? Wasn't that the conclusion of the autopsy?

A: Aaron Blake

Look: the GOP has big future problems when it comes to the Latino vote. But as for now, in 2016, it doesn't preclude them from winning the election. It's not like Romney got blown out because Latinos were one-third of the vote. They were about 10% of the vote.

I really think that a more capable candidate who took the same positions as Romney could very well have won the 2012 election.

None of this is to say the GOP doesn't have work to do. It can't cede basically all of the Latino and African-American vote for decades to come. But it's not disqualifying in 2016, so I'm not sure you'll see a more moderate GOP nominee.

CW now is that Republicans will take up comprehensive immigration reform after the filing deadline to avoid more TP challengers. If history means anything, won't Republicans be frightened by their base flocking to their primary challengers regardless of how viable they look in a general election?

I think the thinking is that most incumbents won't face primary challengers at all (most of them don't, usually), and thus can vote however they want.

This ignores two things though: 1) many of these members disagree with comprehensive immigration reform on principle -- not just because they're worried about losing, and 2) they could still get primary challengers in 2016. The next election is never THAT far away.

Republicans seem to be on the rise in Colorado, and Sen. Mark Udall looks possibly vulnerable, but his leading opponent is Ken Buck, who threw away a Senate race in 2010. Are any other Republicans looking at the contest?

A: Aaron Blake

This is something of a forgotten race. There are a couple state legislators on the ballot.

The national GOP basically wants anyone not named Ken Buck to win the nomination. From there, they need a really good environment.

America agrees that Congress sucks. Can you name four current members of Congress, one from each party in each chamber, that you'd like to clone so stuff would get done and partisanship would be reduced?

A: Aaron Blake

I've asked this question of folks who know the chambers better than I. Here are some folks they cite:

Hi Aaron -- next time a smarmy commentator asks about your QB, ask them how their Skins QB is doing. Which senate race would you follow if you had to pick one and why?

A: Aaron Blake

It's got to be either Kentucky or Louisiana. Louisiana because I think it's pivotal for the majority and because the state's politics are fascinating, and Kentucky because it's the Senate minority leader in both primary and general election trouble.

Can you please confirm my hope/sense (not sure which it is) that the Obamacare disaster is fading a little as an issue? I don't think this could have been worse if they put "heckuva job Brownie" in charge of the rollout. Do you think the issue will have legs by the time of the midterms (among the persuadable middle, not tea partiers)?

A: Aaron Blake

I'm not sure it's dying down yet. There are still major questions about the information on the back-end that is being sent to insurers, for instance. If the information continues to be incomplete or duplicative, that's an even bigger headache for people than some Web site problems.

Imagine going to the doctor, submitting a claim and having it rejected because the insurer doesn't even know that you have a policy. Scary, right?

There are still oodles of pitfalls here. For now, there's a bit of a lull in the bad news for the adminstration. But a lull doesn't mean it's fading, necessarily.

I don't understand all these scared moderate Republicans. Won't the Democrats offer them the asylum of changing parties? Then, come the election, they'd get the Democratic vote, and certainly some significant percent of fed up Republicans who realize they had no choice?

A: Aaron Blake

Party-switching is a last-ditch effort for politicans, not simply something they do whenever it's convenient.

And the recent history of party-switchers is not a good one. Rep. Parker Griffith (D to R-Ala.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R to D-Pa.) both lost primaries in 2010, Charlie Crist lost the Senate race that year, and Lincoln Chafee's party switch didn't exactly do him much good this year.

The problem is that Democrats will still want to run someone who is with them on their issues -- not just someone who happens to vote with them on immigration or some other issue.

Aaron Blake covers national politics at the Washington Post, where he writes regularly for the Fix, the Post's top political blog. A Minnesota native and graduate of the University of Minnesota, Aaron has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and The Hill newspaper. Aaron and his wife, Danielle, and dog, Mauer, live in Northern Virginia.